Fear of the Dark

A routine translation from the warp brings something sinister through from the other side. Captain Aethon Shaan must fight, not in the shadows, but in the light if he is to survive…

Writer’s Commentary

Another of the short stories leading the way to Games Day UK 2013, this one appeared in the event program (which was a pleasant surprise on the day!) and has since been collected in the Angels of Death anthology. It’s no secret I love the Raven Guard and find any excuse to put them in my books. The character of Aathon Shaan was a lot of fun to write in The Chapter’s Due, and I always wondered what had happened to him in the wake of that story. I like my Raven Guard ninja, but that’s not the only way the Legion fights, as Gav Thorpe has so ably demonstrated in Deliverance Lost and Soulforge.

For this story, I wanted to break what I’ve done with the Raven Guard, to a place where the darkness isn’t their ally. I wanted to take them out of their comfort zone and make them operate in the light. This isn’t their preferred arena, but they’re Space Marines and warriors who are nothing if not adaptable.

I was asking a lot of a thousand word story, but I think I got it all in. And now that Shaan’s found his way back home, there’s no excuse to not write that long-gestating 40k Raven Guard novel…